


Cor aut mors

by yathrin



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Collective hysteria, Denial of Feelings, Downward spiral of sin, Eventual Smut, Historical References, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Multi, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Racism, Priest Connor & Hank, Religious Conflict, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Salem & Sleepy Hollow inspired, Slow Burn, Torture, Will be adding characters and tags as I include them, Witch Trials AU, executions
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-03
Updated: 2018-09-17
Packaged: 2019-07-06 03:14:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15877341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yathrin/pseuds/yathrin
Summary: Hard-hearted Reverend Hank Anderson is appointed by Boston’s North Church to delve into a series of trials for witchcraft that are being conducted in a small, gloomy town of the Massachusetts Bay. To assist him in this endeavour, he's been sent a righteous young minister eager to bring back peace and order to the townspeople that have fallen into chaos and collective hysteria.Will they uncover the dark secrets hidden behind closed doors and resentful glowers, avoiding a gruesome chain of torture and summary execution, or will they succumb to the influx of the Devils that are said to prowl the streets of the sin-plagued place?





	1. Et facta est lux

**Author's Note:**

> This AU was asking to be made.  
> Title is latin for "heart or death", meaning a choice between moral values, duty and loyalty or death (to no longer matter, to no longer be respected as person of integrity.)

_“God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night, / And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.”_

_Genesis 1:5_

 

Reverend Hank Anderson arrived early in the morning after a most unpleasant trip by horse and carriage, raising a small cloud of dust when his boots touched the earth pathway that led to the town. He looked around, squinting his eyes under his black hat due to the bright though scattered light that permeated the atmosphere despite the dense clouds of storm looming in the horizon. With his impressive height of 6’3” dressed in a crisp black robe with long sleeves and equally black buttons from the neck down to the hemline, a wide black tasselled sash wrapped around his waist that went down to his knees, and matching grizzly beard and mane that framed his face reaching his square jawline, he made for a formidable presence that everyone turned to glance at as he walked down the path and headed towards the house of the Lieutenant Governor Warren, the biggest building in town. Around him, everything looked dull and gave the impression of being part of a faded picture that withered in a storage room, covered in dust. The pebbles that paved the main street were the same grey of the stone houses and the well in the midst of the square, the same lacklustre silver of the January sky. Hank’s footsteps made a loud tapping sound and then were swallowed by the light mist that covered the ground up to his soles.

He didn’t spare a look of his deep blue eyes for any of the townspeople that gossiped and whispered from behind closed shutters and strode decisively until he got to the Governor’s front door. There was a heavy metal piece forged in the shape of a roaring lion that held a ring on its mouth for a doorknob. The reverend lifted it in his calloused hands and let it knock twice.

A servant accompanied him to the big, if modestly furnished living room, an alcove that didn’t convey a sense of luxury except for the big chandelier that hung from the ceiling and the huge fireplace that heated the whole building. Hank paced around, waiting for his host to receive him, scrutinizing every detail around him, from the spiderwebs across the beams of the high ceiling to the creaking wooden planks of the floor. His sharp gaze found a huge tapestry hanging from a dimly lit wall and he was drawn to it to submit it to a closer inspection right when a female silhouette entered the room.

It was a corpulent woman well in her fifties, with a straight back, broad shoulders and a stern look framed by ashen blonde hair tightly combed back into a bun. After giving him a brief, firm handshake, she offered Hank a seat and then sat herself by the fireplace as well.

“I’m Mrs. Warren. I must apologise for my husband’s absence. He went on a journey to England three weeks ago and won’t be expected anytime soon.”

“Reverend Anderson, at your service, ma’am,” he answered.

A worn-out leather briefcase was all he had for luggage, and he let it down on the floor near the upholstered armchair where he rested his back. Warren stared at the top of his head, probably expecting him to remove his hat. He indulged her and put it on his knees, although her expression remained difficult to read, likely judging his dishevelled strands of fluffy grey hair.

“We are in desperate need of your help, Reverend.” When she spoke, Mrs. Warren’s voice was as composed as the rest of her semblance, but there was a certain urgency in the gleam of her tired eyes. “Matters are spiralling out of control.”

>>”Each day the number of accusations held against our fellow townspeople grows. Strange spells are cast on children, women go into fits of rage against their husbands, cattle die. There’s an evil taking over these lands and I’m afraid we won’t be able to stop it until the last of us is burned at the stake.”

The servant who had received him came back with a silver tray on his hands. A crystal set of glass and bottle were placed on the round coffee table that stood in front of where they were seated. The young man poured some of the chestnut liquid in the glass and the man took it. He was tall and lean, with blonde hair above a high hairline, and gentle eyes that Hank read as apprehensive.

“You can leave us now, Simon,” Mrs. Warren dismissed him with a wave of her hand. The servant gave a polite bow and disappeared. Hank had noticed his hands squeezing one another, gleaming with sweat, but didn’t say a thing about it, choosing to make idle chat instead for starters.

“Aren’t you drinking with me?”

“It would be improper for a lady of my standing to drink alone with a stranger,” she stated as if she was talking about how the grass is green and the skies are blue.

He downed his glass in one gulp, certain that it would make the woman flinch, but he had to give it to her -she kept a cold stance, although it was becoming increasingly clear with time that she didn’t approve of his manners one bit.

“So tell me, if you’d be so kind. When and how did this all begin?”

Mrs. Warren straightened the folds of her skirt and rested her hands on her thighs demurely.

“There had been rumours about witchcraft in neighbouring towns, but we never thought it would affect our small settlement. We’ve always been proud of our upright citizens…”

 _Damn woman talks like a politician_ , he thought, careful not to let it slip. She was more than capable of sending her servant to kick him out were he to dare blaspheme in her house.

“The first suspect was a homeless beggar. She lived off the charity of parishioners and what she found in the streets. A month ago, she was accused of giving Mrs. Smith’s daughter the evil eye, after the girl started behaving in an… odd way.”

“Odd,” Anderson spurred the woman to elaborate.

“She flapped her arms like a bird and would let out sudden outcries that froze the blood in one’s veins. We had a doctor examine her -he said these fits were well beyond the power of a simple fever or a common disease.”

Hank grazed his front teeth with his tongue. He asked to contact the good doctor, but as it happened, the man was settled in a city that was a day of travel away. Inconvenient. For him, at least.

“And after that?”

Mrs. Warren took a slow breath and pierced him with her strict gaze.

“After that it was an Irish washerwoman, accused of placing a curse on the Goodwill household. Several witnesses swore having seen her engage in heretic rituals and uttering under her breath in the streets. Then, all of a sudden, a number of accusations have risen against perfectly respectful members of our community. I myself had never seen the jail so full. The bailiff can barely manage…”

“I have been informed,” Hank interrupted her, causing the woman to purse her lips thin into an appalled grimace, “that disputes about property lines, inheritance and church privileges are rife in this town since it was founded. Am I mistaken, madam?”

The question seemed to take her aback, for she remained silent longer than Anderson’s patience was capable of putting up with without letting out an exasperated sigh.

Before he could add another disparaging remark, the woman took the floor.

“I will ignore the implications of your statement, father. I have seen the Devil’s work with my very own eyes and I assure you, all the people demand is justice. The Court is simply trying to do the Lord’s bidding in uprooting evil from this place-”

“Human justice is different from divine justice, ma’am, and as such, different rules must be observed for each,” the reverend shook his head. His defiance didn’t go unnoticed by the Governor’s wife, who however chose to stay poised.

“I don’t intend to question your methods, Reverend Anderson. I only want to see this distasteful matter resolved at once.”

The reverend nodded gravely.

They exchanged some more formalities that Hank didn’t find to be of any interest. It was agreed that he would be accommodated in the second floor of the tavern that also served as an inn. The parish church remained closed off since the former minister departed because the congregation had failed to pay their full rate and Anderson didn’t deem it necessary to re-open it until the agitated climate had died off a little. God knew when that would be.

The tall figure of the reverend stood up and took his briefcase from the floor, the fireplace casting his long shadow across the living room. Mrs. Warren gave him directions to the inn -the town barely had two main streets and a couple of dead alleys so it wouldn’t have been hard to find even without them- and bent her waist in a brief bow.

“I hope your stay will be pleasant, reverend, within the unfortunate circumstances. I send my husband a letter every week to keep him up to date on the town’s sad affairs. If there’s anything you consider worthy of his attention, let me know and I will include it in our correspondence.”

Hank put his black hat back on and tipped it to the lady as a farewell. Before crossing the front door, he turned his head slightly to discover the young servant -Simon, he believed Mrs. Warren had called him-, peeping from the corner of the hall. When he noticed Hank returning his gaze, his blonde head promptly disappeared.

 

-Ω-

 

The inn was as deserted and soulless as the rest of the town. The wood that made up its walls and ceiling had gone grey and creaked with each step Hank took inside, and there was a thick layer of dust upon every round window. There was barely the sound of background conversation and the tinkling of some glasses in the few occupied tables. The man that served the customers behind the bar was red-faced with a chubby complexion and he was busying himself with rubbing a mug with a piece of yellow-ish cloth that gave the impression that it was staining the piece further, rather than cleaning it. He glanced at the reverend once, like the rest of the customers, and went back to his menial task with boredom etched on his round face.

After a quick survey with his keen eyes, Hank concluded the shelves behind the bartender didn’t offer the broadest range of beverages he had seen, but it would suffice.

“Pour me one of those,” he pointed with his finger at a bottle of Scotch.

While the innkeeper did as he had been told, Hank heard the squeaky door of the building opening at his back, but he payed no heed to it. He squeezed his hat into his briefcase instead and, when his glass was filled with the caramel-coloured liquid, he took a sip and sighed at length.

His moment of inner peace didn’t last.

“Reverend Hank Anderson?” he heard a husky, polite voice call from the stool right next to his. Hank closed his eyes to avoid rolling them backwards and then turned to meet the stranger’s gaze.

The voice belonged to a wide face with sharp cheekbones and a cleft chin, crowned by a head of brown hair pristinely combed back, except for a rebel tuft that fell over his forehead, giving him a more light-hearted air. Brown inquisitive eyes looked at him, surrounded by a couple of perfectly placed moles and freckles that looked as if whoever had created him had taken a deliberate decision to spot his marble-perfect skin in order to make him pass as a real, down-to-earth human, instead of a chiselled bust. Some of them could be seen beneath the collar of his black robe, similar to the one Hank was wearing but much more modest; the younger man also had a small silver cross hanging from his neck, whereas Hank wasn’t wearing his. A new burst of words came out of those sculpted lips.

“I was told you’d be arriving today. I went to see you at the Governor’s house, but you had already left. My name is Connor Sterling. I’m the minister sent by Boston’s North Church to be your partner and assist you in dealing with the witchcraft trials.”

A slender, pale hand outstretched to meet Hank’s, who simply stared at it in sheer bedazzlement.

“You’re who?” is all that he managed to mumble.

Connor’s eyebrows furrowed. “You _are_ Reverend Hank Anderson, right?”

Then he scrutinized him from top to bottom and then to top again, eyes lingering for a while on where Hank’s holy symbol should be. “You’re not wearing your cross.” He shot a glance at the glass Hank was holding. “And you’re drinking. Maybe I have got the wrong person. Sorry for the inconvenience.”

The moment the smooth-faced priest’s utter confusion surpassed Hank’s, going as far as to motion away from him, the latter let out a scoff.

“Unluckily, son, you got it right.”

Disappointment displaced bewilderment on this priest Sterling’s handsome features. It really was an unpleasant look on him but Hank was too busy swearing under his breath to mind.

 “Nobody told me about this. Are you sure you’ve been assigned here and not, say, anywhere else across the country?”

But somewhere along his intervention, Connor had stopped listening and his features now gleamed with amiability.

“I have heard a lot from you. I’ve been looking forward to working alongside an experienced minister of the Church.”

Hank cocked his head back, looking down at his interlocutor, who was some good three inches shorter than him, with no effort to disguise his annoyance. “Look, boy, I don’t need a partner. I work best alone.”

“That’s unfortunate,” Connor leaned forward and rested his forearms over the dusty bar, interlacing his fingers, “because I intend to do as I was commanded to do.”

The day had barely started and Hank was already ready to get into bed and wait for the sun to rise up next morning, he thought sourly. “No rest for the wicked, ey,” he mumbled before taking a long sip from his glass under Connor’s disapproving gaze.

“I’d like to insist in the importance of your wearing your cross,” the earnest young man pressed.

“Well, Connor -can I call you Connor? Priest Sterling doesn’t cut it, and no way on Earth I’m calling you Father...”

“It would be most unprofessional-“

“See, Connor, the thing is I’m not on duty yet. I’ve just arrived but, rest assured, I will wear it when I start doing _my_ job,” he emphasized. “Now beat it, will ya.”

After Hank’s hard words there was silence (although the priest sitting at his right didn’t move an inch) and he managed to finish his drink without any more interruptions. He wondered how he’d gotten himself into this mess: a quarrelsome, forlorn town filled with vermin more than willing to backstab each other for a square mile of dried soil, now on the verge of chaos because of several alleged cases of witchcraft, and the icing on the cake was this overenthusiastic trainee that would, no doubt, step on his toes all the time he was allowed to. Hank suppressed a mournful sigh. The punishment for his past misdeeds had never felt so bothersome.

When the pleasant dazedness of the alcohol set in, he turned to look at his compulsory tag-along. He had his lips halfway parted just right of the centre of his Cupid’s bow in a meditative gesture. Hank truly hated that he looked like a Renaissance saint and a fawn had a love child and it had become a model choir-boy.

“Where are you staying?” he asked him, snapping him out of his thoughts. He regretted it instantly.

“In this very inn. I believe my room is adjacent to yours,” Connor replied, straightening his back as he was addressed.

“Great,” Hank stretched the corners of his mouth with sarcasm. “Hey,” he signalled to the bartender. “Send something to eat to my room, uh, whichever the Governor’s wife has arranged for Reverend Anderson. And a bottle of house wine.” He looked at Connor form the corner of his eye. “Same for my friend here.”

“Reverend, I don’t’-“

“Put it on the Warrens’ account,” Hank smiled, this time genuinely, at his companion’s mild vexation.

The older man stood up from the stool and, much to his dismay, Connor followed suit and both men headed upstairs to their respective alcoves, the keys to which the bartender had left on the bar for them to take. The steps creaked loudly under their weight, same as the wooden planks that made up the corridor’s floor. _At least whoever attempts to murder me in my sleep won’t have the element of surprise on his side._

Connor had guessed right; there were only three rooms on that floor and the ones they’d been assigned were contiguous. Hank slid his key inside the lock and struggled to turn it open, rusty as it were.

“I’m worn-out after the long trip and I need to doze off for a bit. It has been a nice chat, but here’s where we part ways.” Hank pushed the heavy door to his room.

“Understood. We’ll meet in two hours downstairs, by the exit. I’ve already arranged our meeting with the first suspect.”

Hank shook his head in disbelief. The lad’s diligence was commendable but all it managed to pull from Hank’s throat was a grunt instead of a praise. There really was no way around it, was there? The reverend gave in to the obvious.

“Be there on time or I’ll proceed on my own.”

The irony of Hank’s demand was not lost on Connor, whose lips curved into a satisfied smirk.

“As you wish, Father Anderson,” he answered with an expression way more charming than it had any right to be.

As soon as the door closed behind him, Hank let himself fall on the bed as tall as he was. As he had expected, his feet stuck well out of the mattress. He pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and index fingers and let out an exhalation that quickly turned into a yawn. He shot one last glance at his briefcase and thought of the heavy golden cross carefully stored inside.

The last image that flashed under his closed eyelids was an earnest look from under thick brown eyelashes, and he fell asleep in a foul mood.


	2. Ex gratia

_“Life and kindness Thou hast done with me / And Thy inspection hath preserved my spirit.”_

_Job 10:12_

 

As they strolled down the street towards the town jails, Hank wondered why Mrs. Warren hadn’t told him a word about the little pest that now followed him around. Relentless like the plague, polite but not subservient, no; the older priest might have been less bothered by his company had the kid been more servile and obedient and less of a bothersome itch on his shoulder, constantly nagging him for not adhering to the behaviour expected from ‘a man of his position’. Perhaps she had had in mind to do so but, after meeting him, decided not to give him any detail about the conditions under which he would be working; for the woman appeared to have great intuition and she must have known from the moment he set foot in her place that the reverend would have the urge to leave as quickly as he had arrived the moment he was informed about his faultless subordinate.

Now, in front of the rectangular building of grey brick, Hank shifted his weight from one foot to the other while Connor stood perfectly still, back straight as a rod of ash tree. They had knocked on the heavy door and were waiting for the bailiff to open up. The younger of the two seemed completely unbothered by the cold, whereas Hank’s head was sunken in between his shoulders, letting out small puffs of air that condensed into a cloud and promptly disappeared with each curmudgeonly mumble of his. He had never been happier about having kept his silver hair long enough to cover his ears and almost tuck into his collar, shielding his skin from the cutting chill of the atmosphere. This time his neck counted on an extra layer of cloth: a silky purple stole with a golden fringe applied to the ends, hanging down in two parallel pieces in front of his bulky chest. Between them shone a big golden cross, the sight of which had lit up Connor’s eyes when they departed from the inn. The memory of his goofy half smile made Hank’s eyebrows knit. He decided to crack the silence to put his thoughts in order.

“So,” he rubbed his heel against the frosty soil, “the first accusation of witchcraft was against a homeless beggar who was seen talking to herself and giving her neighbours ‘the evil eye’,” he recounted, not without a sheen of irony.

“Ms. Frye. Died in jail a week and a half ago, before her trial took place,” Connor picked up where he had left. “She was old of age; couldn’t withstand a winter as cold as this.”

“Not locked up in a stone cell with gaping holes for windows, she couldn’t.”

Connor’s eyes squinted. Hank guessed he was trying to figure out the reason of the bitterness in his remark on the death of an old woman put behind bars for, presumably, no reason. The reverend let out a huff of hair through his long nose.

“Next one was a washerwoman, accused of cursing the Goodwills. What became of her?”

“The court had her hanged,” Connor replied, his boyish features expressionless, “a few days after Mrs. Frye was buried.”

Hank clicked his tongue. “Less work for us, I suppose. Then who’s the suspect we’re about to see now?”

Connor leaned forward a bit. His smaller, silver cross parted from his chest and dangled in the air in front of him.

“There have been several more accusations of witchcraft and sorcery. Three more people are currently held inside this building on those charges. I chose our first suspect on the grounds of being both the more recent arrest and the next trial to be held; it’s scheduled for next week.”

Hank could do nothing but nod at Connor’s matter-of-fact explanations. Out of any other person’s mouth, it would have sound pompous and conceited, but Connor’s earnest voice made it impossible to think there was any ill-intent behind his words; only a sincere wish to be helpful and diligent.

“What are this, uh, person’s charges?”

“Mrs. Williams is accused of poisoning her husband and casting a spell on her step-daughter. That’s why her trial is deemed an urgent matter. Attempted murder is no tame subject.”

“What have the others done?”

“I… haven’t made the enquiries to find out yet.” Connor must have seen Hank’s lips twitch in a sketch of a sneer, because he quickly made an excuse for his lack of knowledge. “But I will, as soon as we’re done with Mrs. Williams’ case.”

His superior didn’t have time to quip. The door to the jail opened with a heavy thud and a short man stomped out of the building, whom Hank assumed would be the town bailiff. He stopped in front of the visitors and looked at them from head to toe with a scowl.

“Reverend?” he chewed out, crossing his arms over his chest. He looked weirdly unkempt, with his scruffy beard, dishevelled brown hair and an ugly scar crossing the bridge of his wide nose.

“Anderson,” Hank answered, turning to face him and making no attempt to fake a smile for the unpleasant little thug. “And this here is my partner, Father Sterling. We have an appointment to interrogate a woman under suspicion of... dishonest deeds.”

A dry nod and he was guiding them into the grey building. Their eyes took a few seconds to adjust to its dimness, only lit by a couple of candles standing in hollows among the brick walls. Somehow, it was colder inside than it was outdoors. Its design was fairly simple: a long straight corridor trailed from the entrance and broadened at the end to allow for a set of an old table and chair for whoever was watching over the cells. The cells themselves were laid along the corridor, barely six by six feet each, and not all of them had a small round opening on top of the wall that opposed the bars, too small for even a child’s head to fit. There was grey moss growing on every corner and despite the air that flowed through said fenestrations, it smelt faintly like rotting leaves and stale sweat.

The first two cells they walked past were empty, presumably because the wall between them had partly collapsed and there was a big gap connecting them. The third cell hosted a shivering bulk wrapped in a dirty blanket, from where a light-haired head stuck out. Its owner seemed to be humming or stuttering to himself.

“Quiet, you!”

The bailiff kicked the iron bars that guarded the curled-up prisoner, who was shaken by the roar, and his face contorted into a nasty grin for a moment.

He stopped at the next cell and cocked his head towards the interior.

“There she is, the shady wench. Wouldn’t get too close if I were you.”

The reverend’s list of priorities didn’t include observing the counsel of any petty little jail guard and his attitude sure didn’t invite to include it. He took a step forward and bent over.

“Good day, Mrs. Williams,” he greeted with a tip of his black hat. “I’m Reverend Hank Anderson and I’m here to try to get to the bottom of this mess.”

Her figure was hard to make out in the darkness of the cell, with the sharp light that beamed in through the round window making everything almost black in stark contrast. Mrs. Williams was sitting in the back right corner of her cell, although collapsed might have been a better term to describe the way her shoulders hung heavy and her chin rested on her chest. If she had heard Hank talk to her, she didn’t even flinch.

“How long has she been here?” he asked the bailiff. He saw him scratch his nostrils from the corner of his eye.

“I dunno. A week?” the man answered, uninterested.

“Don’t you have any sort of file to record that?”

“With your permission,” Connor interrupted, “I could go check.”

Before the young priest could move, the bailiff stiffened his posture. “Why would I let you rummage through my register?”

He used a threatening tone, the absolute goon. Hank was sure he’d never dare talk to him the way he talked his assistant -who was well three inches taller than the bailiff already-, but he found himself empathizing with the man, if in a hollow and fleeting manner; Connor’s ridiculously cherubic features and politeness gave a feeling of readiness to be pushed around. He contemplated the development of the scene, wondering how bad yet another senseless brawl it would look on his record but wanting to let Connor fend for himself.

“I gather you’re a busy man, Mr. …”

“Reed.” The way he glared at Connor, so vastly different from him with his poised bearing and polite visage, made Hank think of a surly rat looking at a guest that had showed up at his sewer uninvited.

“Mr. Reed.” The pristine-looking young man said, with his hands resting at the small of his back. “I bet you wouldn’t like having to deal with the arrests, the register _and_ a questioning by the Archpriest on why you effectively obstructed an important investigation of the Church.”

The bailiff fell silent. Hank tilted his head backwards and looked down on the broad-shouldered man, and then shifted his gaze to Connor, whose lips were oh-so-slightly curved upwards. _Kid’s cocky,_ he noted. After a while, Reed spat out something unintelligible under his breath and led the way to the register, which wasn’t more than a glorified bundle of yellow papers sewn together collecting dust on the guard post’s table.

Hank used the time Connor spent skimming through the pages to squat and have a closer look at this Mrs. Williams. He couldn’t discern her hair colour, but it had once been tied into a low bun -now a mess of loose, unwashed strands. What he thought to be a headpiece turned out to be, upon more detailed inspection, a wind blindfold that covered her eyes and eyebrows. Her hands weren’t tied, sitting one over the other on her lap, and her chest rose and fell rhythmically. Perhaps she was asleep, he thought. There probably weren’t many other options to use one’s time when thrown in a cell; sleep, breathe, overthink.

Hank thought the woman didn’t look the part. With half her face covered, it was difficult to know for certain but she seemed quite young and although her dress was in rags it was a modest piece of fashion, not too shabby but definitely not extravagant either.

The bailiff came back, this time following the jolly steps of priest Sterling.

“Why is she blindfolded?” the reverend rose up. He sounded more upset than he had intended to let out but, on second thought, a little intimidation served Reed just right.

“In case she tries to give someone else the evil eye,” the man answered as defiantly as he had it in him to be. “Around women, you never know.”

Only he laughed at his own sneered. Hank pinched the bridge of his nose and invited Reed to leave them alone, making it clear with his low, reverberating voice that he would put up with no discussion about it.

“I understand why he wouldn’t want anyone looking at his poor attempt at a register,” Connor announced once the bailiff had left. His voice had taken on a cheerful tone, like a preppy student hunting for the praise from his teacher. “I’m certain he’s made up most of the dates there, and there are more scribbles and smeared blots of ink than actual writing.”

Hank almost felt bad for ignoring his underling’s attempt at bonding over their very apparent shared dislike of the bailiff. “Yeah, yeah, whatever, what have we got?”

Connor cleared his throat, recovering his usual distant, professional pitch.

“Mrs. Kara Williams has been here for six days, if we’re to trust Mr. Reed’s notes.”

“It’s all we have. We can work with that,” Hank brushed his beard with the back of his hand.

“I’ve found something else,” Connor added. His eyes darted around and he leaned in to get closer to Hank, a movement that had to be followed by him standing on his toes a little in order to better reach the older man’s ear. The closeness took Hank off guard, as did Connor’s husky whispering. “It hasn’t been written down, but the bailiff has told me the suspect has been receiving periodical visits from the same person.”

Connor left the sentence hanging in the air, as if he were expecting some sort of reaction from Hank. The reverend felt rushed all of a sudden.

“Well, don’t go all cryptic on me now, who is it?” he urged him to continue with a shake of his hands.

“Her 9-year-old step-daughter.” Connor made a pause of effect, raising his thin eyebrows. “Alice Williams.”

Upon hearing the girl’s name, the prisoner lifted her head, causing the two men to turn theirs towards her.

 

-Ω-

 

For a house that was more of a hut, tiny and a good walk away from the centre of town, deep between the firs, red oaks and maples, ‘lonely’ and ‘quiet’ were the very last words to come to mind to describe it. The bubbling of boiling water and the tinkling of the forest of pots and pans that hung from the ceiling beams could be heard before crossing the fence that drew the limits of the small property; a warm orange light seeped from its round windows, surrounded by a tangle of green vines and ivy leaves. A white column of smoke rose up from the chimney and a most curious orchestra of wild birds and stray cats gathered around the flat stone that made for a doorstep, chirping and meowing, waiting for a dark-skinned hand to toss a sprinkling of bread crumbs and dried meat for them to feast upon. The wooden cabin looked every inch like its walls were alive themselves.

The sight always managed to wash Markus over with a sense of familiarity and calmness, despite the frequency of his visits, which during the last year had increased to at least once a week, in the wake of his benefactor’s worsening health. The young man strolled along the dusty path, bracing his sturdy cloak against his toned body to fend off the winter chill. His head was shaved, which should make the coldest months of the year harder to endure, but he had grown so used to the breeze over his scalp that he found it almost comforting, in a way. He shoved off the animals at the hut’s entrance with some soft kicks of his worn-out shoes without actually hitting them and knocked politely on the thick door.

The door opened with a heavy squeak and he rushed inside, plunging into the pleasant heat of the hearth fire that lit up the whole single room almost on its own, helped by a handful of candles burning here and there. Markus thought it was a miracle the house hadn’t burned down yet.

As he removed his cloak and let it hang from a nearby dead tree in a clay pot whose branches had been transformed into a practical set of hangers, he heard a friendly voice at his back.

“I didn’t expect you so soon.”

Markus turned to face the woman that had spoken. Well over her thirties, the owner of the lively house received him with her usual self-tailored dress consisting of layers and drapes of different patterned cloths that showed off the black skin of her cleavage in a way few ladies from town would approve of, and a modest white apron stained every shade of green, yellow and red. All kinds of charms hung from her pockets and belt: dried flowers, threaded colourful beads, pebbles engraved with mysterious markings. She wore her hair up in a bundle of braids tied with ribbons and a headscarf neatly placed on top; some strands of threaded hair stuck out of it and fell over her bare shoulder blades.

“It’s always good to see you, Lucy,” Markus nods at her. “Unfortunately, the reason is not.”

Lucy’s eyebrows furrowed knowingly. She raised her hand to guide Markus to a wooden chair that creaked under his weight when he sat, after Lucy shooed away a fat grey feline that was sleeping on it.

“How is he?” she asked, turning to the kitchen and stretching her arms, heavy with bracelets, to reach for the bundles of herbs stacked one upon the other on the shelfs above the stove.

“He seems to be in good spirits, as always,” Markus replied, hopelessness etched in his voice, “but his body weakens with each day."

“Carl’s will is strong, but the soul can only do so much when its shell starts to rot away.”

Lucy took some leaves out of a crystal jar, crushed them between her hands and tossed them into a copper pot filled to the brim with boiling water; the bubbles could be seen bursting on the surface violently.

Markus fidgeted with the hem of his rough leather vest. He watched Lucy dance around the trinket-crammed kitchen and took in the entrancing scented steam that rose from the stove and mixed with the rest of the smells that lingered heavy inside the hut’s stale air. Coriander, cardamom, lavender, peppermint, cat fur, tobacco, coffee, cloves, rusty iron, dry wild mushrooms, incense, burnt tallow candles, wet rope. He let it all overwhelm his senses and he settled back in the chair, eyes half-open.

“He’s lucky to have you, Markus. Without you to care for him, he would be withering alone in his misery.”

Lucy leaned down and took one of his twitchy hands in hers. They were callous and creased, almost more so than Markus’ even, as expected from a woman that had lived through the things she probably had and of which the young man didn’t know a lot, but their touch was soothing. One of them cupped his jaw and lifted his head so his eyes would meet hers, instead of being fixed on the cracks and crevices of the wooden floor.

“Carl loves you wholeheartedly. You’re all he has. You should take pride in that and stand tall, with your head high.”

Markus squirmed away, suddenly too aware of his different-coloured eyes now that they were stared into by Lucy’s dark, inquisitive ones. He hated that they drew attention on him; he suffered enough gossiping without them. The glorified ex-slave. Mr. Manfred’s errand monkey. His abhorrent irises -one a light blue, the other crystal green- had only exposed him to further scrutiny since he was but a child. So, he had learned to keep his chin almost glued to his chest, to walk hunched over, to lurk away from crowds and avoid his neighbours’ gazes. There were only three people in the world whose looks he dared to return without shame. Lucy was one of them, so he forced himself to confront her directly; he owed her that kind of honesty, after all she’d done for Carl and himself.

“I’m scared. I don’t know what will become of me when he’s gone.” His lower lip quivered.

Lucy’s answer was a kind smile. She kneeled in front of him and brought his hand, firmly held between hers, to her forehead, eyes closed and lips pressed, and she started humming. Markus could feel the atmosphere around them charge with some kind of eerie energy, something he could not see but made his bones tremble. A fat raven squawked from one of the windowsills, tilting its head with those jerking motions birds did, and Markus could have sworn the hanging pans and pots had clattered.

Suddenly, the woman threw her head back, exposing the pulsating blood vessels of her neck. Her eyelids fluttered, nothing but white beneath them. A hoarse sound came out of her throat and her hands squeezed his so tight her nails started piercing his skin. But Markus knew better than to move, or make a noise, or even breathe.

“The emperor hangs from the tower,” her voice was wheezy, low, broken off by noisy intakes of breath, not unlike the very rattling of near death. “Rats and crows will feast on the flesh of the sinless. The black smoke blinds the hermit, he who holds the world in his hands. The emperor hangs from the tower…”

Her speech ended in a low screeching noise and her blank eyes rolled back further before her neck bent forward and Lucy exhaled, gasping for air. Her hands had loosened their grip on Markus’ and he took the chance to hold her face as she slowly returned to her senses. She looked around, composing herself. Her gaze stopped on the young man’s face, barely a few inches from hers, and her chest recovered a steady rhythm of ups and downs.

Markus would have liked to offer words of comfort, despite knowing well she didn’t have much use for them, but the boiling water behind them spurted out loudly and the woman rose to her feet quickly in order to retrieve the pot from the stove. It wasn’t long until Markus found two flasks filled with the concoction, sealed with hot wax so their contents didn’t spill on his way back and while they were stored.

“It’s stronger,” Lucy explained to him, her long nails tapping on the glass. “It should mitigate the pain better than the usual, but it will make him sleep more.”

Markus nodded, inspecting the murky liquid briefly before taking his cloak and throwing it over his shoulders. The flasks he put with care inside a small leather bag, from which he also took a shiny silver coin for Lucy. The woman accepted the payment with modesty.

“I can’t thank you enough for what you’ve done for us.”

“It’s what I do.”

Lucy saw him off from her doorstep, moment several stray cats used to sneak in and out of the hut, curling their bodies around her feet and purring loudly. Having checked that the flasks wouldn’t fall, he adjusted his cloak and took off.

 _The emperor hangs from the tower,_ the words echoed in his head, but he soon gave up on trying to discern their meaning. The rest of her sombre omen, he could more or less understand. Vermin feasting on innocent corpses. He thought of the woman being held in jail under an accusation of witchcraft. He didn’t know her, not even her name, but the situation filled him with uneasiness. He thought of Lucy. She had assisted childbirths and given effective herbal remedies to many of them, she offered sound advice, comfort and sometimes warnings. The young servant wanted to believe that all of those things had earned her enough respect from her community but first and foremost, she was a former slave with unknown past and unorthodox methods of making a living. There had already been several accusations of spell casting and sorcery against people that lived dull lives within the limits of the colony and new suspicions arose every day around blameless neighbours; the idea of Lucy being next in line seemed more than a likely scenario. But Markus had enough to fret about already and it was no use worrying about things yet to come.

He headed to Master Manfred’s house, a building only second in size to Governor Warren’s and furnished way more lavishly. Carl was waiting for him, as always. Every day his frail body shrunk further into the huge mattress that supported the bedridden old man. His collarbones stuck out from his nightrobe threatening to pierce through his spotted skin and the smile he always had ready to show Markus felt particularly taut under the candlelight that night.

“Markus,” he called fondly as the young man sat on the bed beside him.

“Master, I’ve brought a new remedy…” he started to talk, pulling the two flasks out of his bag.

“What did I tell you about calling me like that?” Carl’s mild quip was interrupted by a weak fit of cough, pain etched on his wrinkled, gentle face. Markus’ eyebrows drew together.

“Alright, Carl. Lucy has prepared something special just for you,” he made the effort. He liked the sound of it, the familiarity. But he feared growing too used to that kind of treatment and slipping up when others were around. He remembered anger contorting the features of Carl’s son one time Markus addressed his father in such casual manner around him. Carl’s strained relationship with his irresponsible, money-squandering offspring had taken a toll on his fragile health and thus, Markus held the honest belief that the longer young Master Leonard kept away from home, the better his father would fare -no stress, no arguments, no fighting over his responsibilities and the management of their properties.

Carl took a sip of the murky liquid from a silver spoon Markus had prepared for him and grimaced.

“It sure is different from the usual,” he brushed his lips with his pale tongue.

“It will alleviate the pain better.”

“It tastes like horseshit.”

Markus couldn’t help but scoff at the childish moodiness of Carl when it came to taking his medicine. It certainly smelt odd, to put it kindly.

“It will also make you sleepy, but it will be good for you. You need rest,” he added.

The Carl he knew would have complained. He’d have jested at his servant for wanting him knocked out so he didn’t have to look after his sorry sack of bones, he’d have told him to bring him a blank piece of paper and some charcoal to fend off boredom instead. But Carl did none of those things, and nodded complacently instead. The ache that twisted his insides had to be truly foul for Carl to accept that only drifting away from consciousness would make it bearable to keep breathing. Markus felt something prick behind his eyes and he took in a sharp breath through his nose.

“You’re a good kid, Markus. Such good decision I made when I brought you here, I’ll never really know.”

Before he could reply, the heavy doorknob of the entrance door hitting the metal plate beneath it reverberated inside the mansion and Markus’ heart skipped a beat.

“Go get it,” Carl said, his words barely a whisper. His eyelids were already starting to drop but his eyes gleamed with something akin to mischief. Markus wondered how much he knew about the visit waiting below, exactly. “Don’t worry about this old man. I’ll be fine. I’ll sleep as you told me.”

Markus put his hand over Carl’s and only withdrew when he saw his master’s eyes close firmly.

He rushed down the stairs, skipping every other step, and opened the door just as hastily as he closed it after the visitor came in and shook the mud off his boots. They stared into each other for a few seconds before melting into a tight embrace that was followed by a chaste kiss on the lips.

“I’ve missed you,” Simon grazed Markus’ jawline with his fingertips.

The next attempt at a kiss was messier. Markus had to stop himself from sucking in Simon’s lower lip and pulled away shortly to have a look at one of the windows that stood at both sides of the door. It was already dark outside, except for the few light spots that came out of the neighbouring houses; not a soul on sight. He took Simon’s hand and pointed upstairs.

The steps’ slight creaking was hair-risingly loud in the dead of the mansion. The two men reached the first floor and walked past the master bedroom where Mr. Manfred lay, presumably deeply asleep, and a couple of other alcoves that remained locked until they reached the one at the end of the corridor and entered it.

The furniture was humble compared to the rest of the extravagant items scattered around the mansion: there was a big but modestly-dressed bed, a nightstand, a dusty carpet that had once been colourful and a huge wardrobe whose doors didn’t quite click closed, leaving a pitch black slit from where one could swear, on moonless nights like those, someone was peeping. It was nevertheless a much more dignified room that Carl had insisted Markus used, instead of the one he was assigned as a servant, a tiny niche on the first floor where he barely fit if he lay flat and frequented by spiders and mice.

Simon sat on the bed while Markus paced the room and recounted what was on his busy mind -particularly the illness that was consuming his caring master, and his concern about his own future after Carl was gone. The youngest Manfred, only son of the old man, was a problem all by itself.

“Master Leonard arrives tomorrow. He was sent notice of his father’s worsening condition.”

Simon frowned. He was more than informed about the young master’s manners, or lack thereof, his erratic way of conducting himself and his vitriolic resentment against the servant his father appreciated so much.

“Do you think he’ll try to stir something up?”

Markus looked down. Leo -as Carl used to call him in an affectionate manner, however contemptuous and loud-mouthed he’d get- only ever worried about being able to afford his very expensive and morally questionable pursuits. Each visit he paid his ill father, the young man’s eyes had sunken deeper into his sockets, his hair had thinned and his hands twitched, restless. He was several years younger than Markus and he had hated him since he set foot in his father’s mansion, but his spite had only grown in recent years, as he distanced himself from Carl while Markus tended to him like Leo never could, or would.

Simon saw the concern in his face and brushed it away with a caress. The blonde man saddled Markus on the bed, pressing his thighs against his hips and closing his arms around his neck. Usually he’d be much demurer and more bashful than this, with Markus being the one snaking his hand under his shirt. However, news of Carl’s son arrival meant they would see the scarce time they usually had to be together drastically reduced for the next weeks, if they got lucky and managed to have a moment to themselves at all. Knowing they’d have to settle for longing gazes from the other side of the street, he must have felt the same urge Markus was feeling, to grind their bodies together, to kiss and taste and fondle.

They had no need for words. Their mouths found each other and quivered with hunger, tongues laving against chipped lips until they were swollen, shiny, soft again.

“Whatever happens, I’ll be here for you,” Simon said as he traced the rim of Markus’ ear tenderly. “When Carl is here no more, you’ll still have me.”

Markus knew Simon hadn’t much. As an indentured worker for the Warrens, the blonde man was a slave in all but name. His possessions could be gathered in a small woolsack and part of his payment came in the form of his very sustenance and having a roof over his head. But as little as he had, he was willing to share it with what would soon be a disenfranchised jobless man, with no references and skin a couple of shades too dark to be respected as an equal by most. Markus’ heart was flooded by the warm honesty of his lover and kissed him back for an answer.

In light of the squeaky nature of the old bedstead and the unavoidable loudness of its temporary occupiers, it was indeed a fortunate thing that Lucy’s new herbal brew had dragged Carl into a deep, unshakeable sleep.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lucy was criminally underused in the game.
> 
> Also, I made a Twitter side account for my bullshit. Hit me up @skeletonwaltz


	3. Mala fide

_“It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline?”_

_Hebrews 12:7_

 

Inside the grey building that served as a jail, reverend Anderson and the young priest Connor Sterling watched the blindfolded woman repeat a name behind bars.

“Alice… is Alice alright?” she asked. It was likely she hadn’t been listening to anything at all until the girl’s name had been brought up in the conversation. Hank and Connor shared a concerned look before focusing on the prisoner and her slightly agape mouth framed by dry lips, the only thing that could be seen under the blindfold that gave any clue about her expression.

“We haven’t spoken to the rest of your family yet, Mrs. Williams, but we will,” Connor replied in his usual soothing tone. It didn’t have the desired effect on the woman, who recoiled against the wall.

“Who’s that?”

Hank intervened before the younger priest could start another litany of polite, yet useless statements. “I told you, I’m reverend Anderson and this is my partner, Connor…”

“I’d rather you introduced me a-”

“Mrs. Williams,” Hank turned a deaf ear to Connor’s complaint and his voice echoed gravely against the prison’s stone walls, making the most of the attention they had garnered from the otherwise distant suspect. “You have been accused of serious charges: attempted murder of your husband, and casting spells on his young daughter.” The woman remained quiet and folded her hands over her knees stiffly. The twitch of her lips didn’t go unnoticed by the seasoned reverend. “I wonder why you’d ask about the well-being of the child whose ailment you have allegedly intended to provoke. I also wonder why that child has been paying you sneaky visits often.”

 Kara’s mouth had turned into a thin line. “I’d never wish her any harm, I swear on my life.”

Fitting that she’d swore on the price she was about to pay were things to go awry, Hank kept the thought to himself.

“Your life is of little value right now. Could you swear on the Bible that you’ve never harboured any ill will towards your husband or his daughter, Mrs. Williams? That’s what will be asked of you during your trial, nothing less.” Hank was surprised to hear Connor’s clean voice ring in the empty jail and the pit of his stomach tightened as the coldness in his underling’s tone poured over his staggered audience. The older man was convinced that Kara would fall silent against Connor’s accusatory demand but ended up being mistaken.

“I couldn’t.”

“Why?”

In the absence of an answer, Connor tilted his head and Hank repressed the urge to roll back his eyes. There was something most odd about all of this. They would have to start all over again or they would pull nothing useful out of her.

“Why are you blindfolded, Mrs. Williams?” Hank addressed her, paying no heed to Connor’s dumbfounded frown. Beginner’s mistake -thinking that going aggressively straight to the point was always the best course of action.

“Because I’ve been branded a witch,” her response was as calm and settled as if she had been asked about the weather that day.

“But your hands are free. Could’ve removed your blindfold, but you haven’t.”

Kara took a moment to think. “What good would it do? It would only make me look guilty in their eyes. This way, I prove I’m not dangerous, that I don’t need to be chained down. I don’t mind it. There is not much to see here.”

“Do you keep the blindfold on when Alice Williams visits you?”

Silence again.

“Father Anderson, we’re drifting off,” Connor told him in a respectful but unequivocally critical manner. Hank shushed him with a wave of his hand as Kara parted her lips once more.

“Sometimes the need to see her face is too strong.” She sounded muffled, almost on the verge of tears, but the strength with which she fought them back earned her Hank’s respect. “She’s a clever girl. She paid the bailiff two silver coins for him to let her in.”

Apparently, despite all of his sarcastic remarks about evil wenches and intriguing women, the bailiff didn’t truly believe Kara to be an evil minion of Satan, or he wouldn’t have let the kid in -not even in exchange for two pieces of silver. It had been a reckless stunt on Reed’s part, breaching security in such a careless way, but Hank suspected he only cared about being paid and left alone.

“Why does Alice visit you, Mrs. Williams?”

The blunt question took her aback and she answered with haste for the first time in the interrogation.

“Because she worries about me, the same way I worry about her.”

There were no lies in Kara’s words, only truth and a deep-rooted fondness etched on her voice, resolved not to crack. Unfortunately, in the eyes of the Court it would only seem that the child was under the influx of the evil spirits the witch had conjured up. The fact that Alice had sneaked past the bailiff in order to see her against the will of her father -that was for certain- made everything worse, considering that the bailiff would never admit to having consented to the visits, and Kara would be further blamed for all kinds of strange sorcery. Hank let out a deep sigh.

“You’ve said you would never harm your husband’s daughter. But when my partner asked you if you’d swear on the Bible that you wished no evil on neither, you refused. Why?”

Connor straightened his back, probably happy that his earlier contribution had been brought up again. Seeing Kara’s head sink deeper into her shoulders, Hank let out a dissatisfied huff. As if asking for permission, Connor looked at him and waited for him to give a brief nod to proceed. Hank laid his shoulder against a nearby pillar and observed the young minister as he brought his hands to his back and cleared his throat.

“There are two possible reasons that have occurred to me as to why that would be the case. First one is, of course, that Mrs. Williams is indeed a servant of the Devil and therefore can’t bring herself to swear on the sacred texts.

The woman remained unresponsive as ever, but her lower lip trembled with renewed vigour. Connor’s attitude emboldened; his husky voice filled the jail in a way Hank admitted, reluctantly, to be quite impressive.

 “The other reason for your refusal might stem from the particular choice of words I made when demanding you to prove your innocence. The sentence I chose was, ‘harbouring no ill will towards your husband or his daughter’, if I recall correctly.”

Connor paced the corridor, seemingly following the trail of his own conclusions as he reached them. Hank wondered how long he’d been acting out the dialogue in his head, so measured and rehearsed it was coming across.

“Until we speak personally to Alice Williams we won’t be convinced of your mutual feelings of affection, but if that ends up being the case…” he took a pause and turned to face Kara, his brown eyes glinting amidst his dusky surroundings, “… can you say the same about Mr. Williams? Can you swear right now, on your life if you must, that you’ve never intended to harm your husband, Mrs. Kara Williams?”

With each syllable, Kara had been shrinking against the corner of the cell and her hands were now reaching for her ears, trembling mid-air on their way.

“You can’t. You poisoned Mr. Williams deliberately but something went wrong and it didn’t result in his death. He realized your intentions and called the authorities on you. And as much of a cold-blooded criminal you might be, you value your honesty too much to try to deny it.”

An ugly sob burst out of the woman’s mouth. Hank could see the gleam of her runny nose in the candlelight and he soon found himself pressing his hand on Connor’s shoulder, so small in size he could cup it whole in his palm.

“Connor, what do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m extracting a confession, Father Anderson,” he stated simply.

“By driving her to tear her hair out in distress?”

“By any means necessary, as I’ve been instructed to do.”

There was the tinkling of a chain dragged across the floor; the prisoner must have had one gripping one of her feet, or both, but her dressed draped down to her ankles and made it impossible to know. She had stumbled up and was now resting her hands on the wall for leverage, lurched forward, and slowly rose up to stand as tall as she were. In the dimness of her cell, Hank believed he saw a dark bruise around her forearm, where her sleeve had lifted and left skin visible. When she finally spoke, her words quivered.

“I can’t, on good faith, swear I’ve never harboured any ill will towards my husband.” She brushed her nose with the back of her hand.

Hank’s knuckles went white and Connor squirmed his shoulder away from his big, squeezing hand with a pleased smile that only complimented his unblemished features, unbearably so, Hank thought, in wake of the unpalatable situation that had painted such joyful expression on the young priest.

“Anything I might say in my defence will be held against me, I know it,” she continued. Wet stains soaked the lower hem of her blindfold. “I have told you enough.”

Kara’s knees bent and she practically collapsed on the floor, her posture disjointed and feeble compared to the one she had upon their arrival. She braced her legs and buried her face in the dirty folds of her dress.

Heat boiled up Hank’s chest and the golden cross felt heavier. Whatever it was they had been looking for, this wasn’t it. The taller man took a knee to the floor and spoke in his soft, low voice, almost a purr.

“Mrs. Williams.”

He heard her weep into the cloth.

“They could hang you for the poisoning of Mr. Williams alone. Witchcraft has been added to your record, so the judges will be all but willing to listen to your pleas. You must give us the whole truth. Things are looking exceptionally grim for you, do you understand?”

At his back, Connor’s previously fast breathing steadied. He could almost feel his brown eyes burning holes into his skull.

 “I think it’s time for us to leave, Father Anderson,” Connor’s candid suggestion struck Hank as aloof and detached. Despite it being the most logical approach to the situation, he found himself gritting his teeth on their way out, trying to drown out the quiet wailing of the woman they left curled up in her cell.

“Tell Alice I love her!” they heard before the thick wooden door closed behind them with a heavy thud.

Bailiff Reed was outside, back leaning against the wall of the building, chewing on a long straw.

“Got anything interesting, sir?” Hank was amazed that a formal way of addressing someone could sound so vulgar depending on whose lips it was uttered from.

“Definitely,” Connor answered politely. Reed glared at him like he was about to hiss at the pristine minister like a rabid cat but didn’t go back inside of the jail building, choosing to trail off the path that led to the town centre instead.

“At least one of us is satisfied with that mess of a questioning,” Hank spat out once alone with Connor, whose brows knitted.

“What’s wrong, Father?”

“That’s what I’d like to know. What’s wrong with you?” Hank faced Connor, looking down on him with his deep blue eyes. “You put her under too much pressure, you scared her back into silence. We were close, God d-,” he cut himself off before he said something that would furrow his partner’s forehead even further. He had no intention of muddying the already murky, agitated waters they were calf-deep in.

“It was my intervention what made her admit she’s guilty,” Connor said, trying to keep a poised façade; the ups and downs of his Adam’s apple under the high collar of his black robe gave a hint of his underlying apprehension. Who liked being scolded by authority, especially one as imposing as the tall, deep-voiced reverend Anderson?

“Guilty?” Hank fumed back. “She admitted to have wished ill upon her husband, not trying to kill him. And she really did seem to love that kid, no spells involved.”

Connor’s eyes narrowed.

“That remains to be seen.”

Hank dusted off his travelling black hat. “Don’t tell me you believe such nonsense.”

>>”Look, Connor,” he suppressed the smile that tugged at his lips whenever he saw Connor’s look of disapproval whenever he used his first name on a casual basis, “this is my field. Boston’s North Church has sent me here and there to check alleged cases of witchcraft all across the country for years. Not a single one of them turned out to be real sorcery.”

A few beats of silence passed between the two before Connor brought a finger to his collar and tucked it in between the cloth and his skin, loosening it and revealing a dark mole on his neck in the process, which Hank put a lot of effort in ignoring.

“Allow me to express my disagreement, Father. Your experience, which I by no means intend to disregard, is limited from a wider perspective. The fact that you haven’t run into any real cases of witchcraft doesn’t mean they don’t exist. Not to mention that, to some scholars of the Church, to doubt the reality of spirits and demons is also to doubt the reality of angels and by extension God himself.”

Hank was truly appalled by Connor’s sheer impertinence, coated by an immaculate etiquette. Any other person he’d have already yelled all kinds of expletives at, if not outright slapped with the back of his hand. But there was something in Connor’s chirpy politeness that made him endearing, even when he was admonishing his superior. It almost made Hank forget the ruthlessness with which he had conducted Mrs. Williams’s questioning; almost. His eyes hooded with disappointment.

“You took a risky gamble by pushing her.”

“It worked.”

“We have nothing of use. That woman was keeping something from us and now we might never know what it is.”

Hank thought Connor might have another witty answer to hit back with, but instead he lowered his brown-haired head.

“I’m sorry, Father Anderson. I will ponder my interventions more carefully next time.”

 Seeing Connor’s doe gaze sink in dejection rubbed Hank all the wrong ways. It reminded him of a beaten puppy and he couldn’t bear the sight for long.

“Did you see her bruises?”

Connor seemed to appreciate the slight change of subject.

“I noticed, yes. I assume they were caused when she was apprehended. They seemed to be quite faded, enough to have been there for six days.”

Six days wasn’t much time. Hank wondered whether the woman had been bruised before being put in her cell; the logical conclusion was something Hank would have rather preferred to discard, but would have to take into consideration in the light of what they now knew. The investigation at the Williams’ house would give them some actual answers, hopefully. He decided to defuse the atmosphere with a verbal jab at his partner.

“And now you’re parroting a doctor. Will you surprise me with your vast knowledge of alchemy next, I wonder.”

Seeing Connor’s bashful half-smile turn into confusion after taking on the badly-hidden irony in Hank’s words improved the reverend’s mood in a way it probably shouldn’t. It was difficult for him to stay mad at the young priest; still easier than trying to push to the back to his mind the chilling new side of his personality Hank had witnessed. In fact, he committed to trying to forget it actively.

They started walking up the slight slope the path crossed towards the heart of the town, heavy mist swirling around their feet.

“By the way, Father Anderson, I looked into the charges of the rest of those in the rest of the cells when I examined the bailiff’s register.”

For a moment, Hank considered pretending not to be interested in Connor’s findings as a puerile way of scolding him for his recent displays of overconfidence. He soon shrugged the idea off; it was, indeed, childish of him, at his age, to try to spite the young minister for doing the job he’d been assigned, even if a bit too passionately, and on the other hand he actually was curious about what on earth might be happening with the rest of the townspeople spending their days locked away in those cold niches of grey bricks -they’d probably have to pay them a visit soon.

“Go on, knock yourself out.”

Connor’s eyes lit up and Hank bit his tongue as he heard him explain in all detail the strange visions of the rye farmer that managed the town’s main barn and which had earned him a containment cell after he had been found surrounded by dead possums and rats, short of carving himself a whole new face with a butcher’s knife, and the charges of licentiousness and crimes against public order and decency, evidently tied to their dealings with the Devil, of two women that, oddly enough, shared their first name. From the corner of his eye, Hank saw Connor’s ears go red as he recounted the latter events. The reverend thought that the bailiff’s notes on the women must have been truly profane, and the corner of his mouth lifted beneath his silver beard.

 

-Ω-

 

The moon was near being full and it glowed bright silver when the clouds allowed its beams in between patches of dark grey. Some of them seeped through the round window of the jail, and flooded Kara’s cell with their ghostly aura; the blindfold cloth was thin enough for her to know. She even could make out certain shapes depending on how she angled her head, like the iron bars or the silhouettes of the few people that came over. That night there wasn’t much for her to see anyway.

Sometimes she heard two female voices engaged in conversation, but it wasn’t too often; only when that foul bailiff wasn’t around, which wasn’t nearly enough if you asked any of the prisoners under his watch, even considering his fondness for copping out of his responsibilities. Now there was a quiet whimpering that often came from the adjacent cell. The man in there used to talk to himself but Kara, intent on detaching herself from her surroundings as long as it was possible for her, never understood what he was saying. That night, however, she found his mumbling almost comforting, perhaps because it distracted her from the silent cries and hiccups she was trying to force back down her throat, perhaps because it made her feel less alone. She hadn’t cried since the first night she had spent in the moldy cell, cold and alone, bracing her sore bruises. The visit of the two priests -she knew they were telling the truth about being men of the Church because for a moment, if brief, she had discerned their black robes and the gleaming crosses than hung from their necks- had stirred her deeply within. At least one of them had gone somewhat soft on her, or tried to. But they had breached the solid walls she had built to protect herself from the reality she would soon be facing, and now the prospect of her nearing trial strained her battered heart. The Court would be twice as unforgiving.

And there was Alice…

Alice, with her shy smile that was brighter than the pale sun that sometimes dared show in the dead of winter. Alice, who worked hard to help her with the housework and at the field and always cheered her up when she was still hurting from Todd’s beatings. Alice told Kara the same stories Kara told her, but adding her own details here and there so they would feel fresh and new like washed bedclothes. Alice, who must be enduring hell without Kara at home to endure her father’s drunken fits in her stead.

A louder sob escaped Kara’s lips, and she covered her mouth immediately. To her surprise, the ramblings of her neighbour stopped, and she heard the metallic dragging of a chain.

“Is the pretty girl alright?” a shaky voice asked. It was most definitely male, but high-pitched and smooth, despite the stuttering. Kara sniffed and wondered whether she should answer.

“Ralph has never heard the girl cry before. Ralph wants to help.”

Normally, Kara would have found it a tad sinister that a grown man talked about himself in third person using such childish sentence-building and she was tempted to just crawl to the farthest corner of her cell and pretend to sleep, praying for real rest to find her after a while. But there was sincere interest in Ralph’s voice, or so she thought, and she was good at reading that sort of thing. She was good with people, in every sense of the word. It would be contemptible of her to disregard the only display of worry and kindness she had been offered in almost a week.

“That’s nice of you, Ralph, but you can’t help. No one can.”

She hadn’t intended her answer to be miserable but she didn’t have it in her to pretend she was feeling otherwise. Her unusual listener struggled with his response.

“Well, w-well, that’s too bad, that’s too bad. But maybe Ralph can help, if you ask him. Ralph likes to help, he likes to…” He talked fast, like his ideas leapt and he wasn’t quick enough to put them into words, and he ended up muttering and humming. It was nerve-wrecking, but Kara was too tired to care.

“Ralph helps a lot of people, oh, yes, he sows the rye, and he reaps the rye, and he puts the rye in the big barn, and everyone asks Ralph for help with their crops, yes…”

He made a pause. Kara fidgeted with her hands, flattening the wrinkled skirt of her dress and trying to fix her bun, which by now had more hair sticking out of it than strands kept up in it.

“But Ralph started to see things, things no one but Ralph see, you see,” he let out a strained giggle. “They were pretty at first, but then they turned nasty, nasty… The black worms, yes, the black worms. Fire ate up Ralph’s legs, you see? They burned, and Ralph’s hands were shaking. R-Ralph was scared, yes, very scared. And Ralph took a knife… And Ralph was locked up, and he can’t help people anymore… But Ralph didn’t do anything wrong, he didn’t…”

Kara felt a sting in her chest. “I’m sure you didn’t, Ralph.”

The stuttering on the other side of the cell’s thick wall decreased. Kara rested her hand on it.

“You know, I used to help somebody too. But since I’m here, I can’t either… I can’t.”

Her voice broke mid-sentence. With her other hand, she removed the blindfold and blinked the tears away, letting her tired eyes adapt to the stark contrast between the prevailing darkness of the building beam of moonlight that lit the iron bars.

“What’s the girl’s name?”

“I’m Kara.”

“No, no, no. The little girl’s name. The little girl that comes to visit Kara.”

The young woman smiled even thought there was no one there to see. “Her name is Alice.” She would try to weather the storm, even without her to hug her through it. Only this time, she was certain there would be no clear blue skies afterwards.

 

-Ω-

 

After only a few days, master Leo’s stay was proving to be the most challenging up to date for Markus. A couple of years younger than the faithful servant, Leonard Manfred’s eyes were sunken in his sockets and red capillaries webbed them where they should have been white; chapped lips and an unkempt, scruffy shadow of a stubble completed the man’s dishevelled look, despite being dressed in ridiculously expensive clothes paid with at his father’s expense. One didn’t have to be a keen observer to notice Leo was well-versed in all the most vile aspects in life. In fact, news about his increasingly eccentric behaviour at college in Newtowne, far from the dignified studies his father had intended for him to pursue, followed him around, although no one quite dared badmouth him in public, given the Manfred’s state and status. It was no secret, however, that many far relatives and acquaintances from both were more than willing to see Leo disinherited so they could fight for the scraps before he squandered all of his father’s properties away. So it was that Leo had grown up surrounded by upstart fake friendships and an increasing urge to steer away from his fathers expectation’s in order to spite him for having sent him away to be raised in strict schools while he, in Leo’s eyes, loafed around, hoarding his money and letting a glorified slave poison his mind and take the place that was rightfully his.

So, in a way, Markus could understand that the wounds Carl had inflicted upon his son, if unwittingly, were too deep-rooted, gaping and oozing, for them to be easily stitched up. He could, from a rational point of view, sympathize with Leo’s pure, unadulterated hatred for him. What he was struggling to deal with was the noxious atmosphere building up in the mansion, the yelling, the shattered plates and vases whose cutting fragments he had to clean up with his bare hands, the stashes of empty bottles he found in Leo’s room on the rare occasion he was allowed in. Carl’s skin bit into his bones and his cheeks hollowed more every day that went by. To make things worse, it was impossible for him to share his troubles with the only two people he confided in. He had only seen Simon in a fleeting moment as they went about their errands downtown. The Warren’s indentured servant had flashed him the briefest curl of his thin lips and its memory was all Markus had to hold on to while he felt his house crumbling down, threatening to collapse and drag down everyone under its roof with it.

It hadn’t been a week when, as Markus dispensed the last drops of the first flask of Carl’s medicine, Leo stormed into his father’s room with complete disregard for anyone and anything that wasn’t him, as usual.

“I need a few dollars, father,” he stated. His quaky voice made a poor job of masking his unrest. His linen shirt peeped out of his silk vest, wrinkled, and his white stocks and shoes were muddy. Markus repressed a sigh, resigning to scrubbing the floors on his already scraped knees yet another time that day. His labour would probably be made more difficult by Leo’s deliberate spitting whenever he saw it fit, and his loud ramblings about how Markus hadn’t ironed his clothes properly.

Carl’s strained words pulled him back to the present. “You already took a handful this morning, Leo. Don’t think I didn’t see you.”

Leo flinched back, almost hissing. He tucked a finger between his sweat-stained cravat and his neck and stuttered. “Th-that wasn’t…”

He paced the room, not knowing where to look at in search of support -but Markus noticed his eyes darting towards the dressing table’s drawers. He knew Carl kept some cash money in there, in case he needed it and didn’t have the time to tell Markus to retrieve it from the safe box. In a reflex, Markus’s back muscles tensed.

“Look, I need it now,” Leo charged back. “For business, you know how these things go…”

“Don’t lie to my face, Leo!” Carl slammed a trembling fist into the mattress with a strength Markus hadn’t seen him muster in weeks. “I know very well the only business you have is enriching the laudanum sellers.”

Leo’s already pale face turned ghostly.

“How…?”

The old man’s features were contorted into a pained expression that made Markus grit his teeth. “Carl…” he tried to soothe him, in vain.

“Everyone knows about it, that you’re wasting your time, and my hard-earned money, drinking and paying for your friends’ debauchery,” Carl couldn’t raise his voice like he would have to some years ago, and he didn’t try. Somehow his weak, defeated demeanour managed to stab into his son’s guilty conscience even deeper. “I won’t trust you with a single dollar’s worth of my money until you start acting like the responsible adult I’ve raised you to-”

“Raised me?” Leo sneered, the most unpleasant sound Markus had had the misfortune of hearing. “You paid for others to raise me. I’d say you never wanted a son but the truth is, you’ve never wanted _me_.”

The glare he sent in Markus’s way burnt the air.

“If you won’t give it to me, I’m going to take what’s rightfully mine,” he strode towards the drawer. Markus, sitting at the edge of Carl’s bed, felt the old man’s hand tug at his trousers.

“Don’t.”

It was a simple command. Stare, don’t do anything, let Leo rummage through Carl’s most precious things that he did nothing to deserve. Let him get what he wants and leave. Reasonably enough, what Carl desired the most those days was peace, and Leo had already taken most of that away. But it was hard to be reasonable with that entitled brat in the room, muttering and throwing those things he deemed of no value around. Some of them he dropped. A mishmash of golden and silvery chains tinkled on their way out of the drawer and onto the wooden surface of the dresser, only for its own weight to pull it down to the floor. A cameo that rendered Carl’s late wife features in a profile view fell and one of its beautifully ornate corners chipped. Markus clenched his jaw.

After what seemed to be an eternity, Leo finished dragging his sweaty fingers along the drawer’s bottom and extracted a small pouch that Markus knew to be filled with coins and notes.

“Thanks, father,” he licked his lips. “I’ll make sure it doesn’t go to waste.”

The servant hadn’t noticed but he had got on his feet and blocked Leo’s path towards the door. Leo looked at him with all the scorn one can gather in a single pair of dilated pupils. He had always hated that Markus was several inches taller than him, and more muscular, and his face more gentile.

“Are you trying to stop me, scum? Are you going to defy your master?” Leo spat out. He squeezed the pouch between his fingers. Markus’s intention was not taking it from him, though. He wasn’t too sure what his intentions were when he had stood up, small hairs risen, fists closed in outrage.

“Markus, let him leave.” Carl’s tiny voice piped out of bed. His son let out a chortle and pushed Markus, not in an attempt to shove him out of the way but to belittle him, to mock his powerlessness.

“C’mon, housemaid. Out of my way.”

_It’s not fair._

He could have done a lot of things he didn’t, like raising his fist to meet Leo’s wrinkled nose with a loud crack, or twist his arm behind his back until he dropped what he had stolen, in all but name, from Carl. He could have shouted what an ungrateful and spoiled weasel he was. But Carl’s coughing spurred him to rush to his bed again, and he took his hand in his. He barely spared a moment to watch as Leo left the room with an easy gait, fondling the pouch in his hand.

When the fit ceased, Carl wiped the dribbles of saliva from his chin with the hem of the sheet and, pointing at the open drawers, he told him to look for a piece of paper in one of them.

“It’s folded and unsealed,” he fought off the cough that lurked at the back of his raspy throat.

Markus did as he was told and retrieved, indeed, a small bundle of ivory paper from a corner left untouched by Leo’s greedy hands.

“Open it.”

The words were longer than Markus was accustomed to read usually, and the flourished, intricate calligraphy made it all the more difficult to decipher. He squinted his eyes at the bigger words on top of the document. It was dizzying, and he didn’t get to read too often -that was probably more than he had read in his whole life.

“Remember our lessons,” Carl pressed his fingertip to the first letter. “That’s an L, and…”

“ _Last Will and Testament of Carl J. Manfred_ ,” Markus finally read aloud, his eyes widening at the end of the sentence. “But Carl, this is…”

“It was long overdue, Markus,” Carl said with hardly any ceremony. “My days are coming to an end.” He didn’t let Markus protest, and flipped the pages until he reached the last one. The signature was already there. “This paragraph might be a bit difficult, I could read it for you…”

His condition clearly didn’t allow him to, and Markus, with his heart drumming in his ears rendering him almost deaf, cleared his throat and read, broken off by frequent pauses and some stuttering, but read.

 

_To Markus, the young man I brought into my home as a child and who has been at my service ever since, having remained loyal and faithful until the very end of my life, I give what I think he will value the most: the termination of his contract as a servant and the indisputable status of a free man and,_

 

Markus’s voice cracked a little.

 

_accordingly, a percent of the real value of the respective assets of my Estate, as well as bequeath these specific items, properties, and other various holdings that list as follows:_

 

He didn’t go on, not feeling the need to. The nameless child born to a slave, saved from the gloom existence that awaited him within the fences of the plantation, would be given property, and a means of sustenance. After all those years of treating him with the deference and respect no one else had spared a child slave, Carl had gifted him with the thing he would have never dreamed of asking: he had given him a right to stand. He had granted him humanity.

Carl folded the paper again and slipped it into one of Markus’s chest pockets. He didn’t seem to be crying, but tears dripped down the corner of his eyes all the same. Markus noticed his breathing had become even more shallow and clipped.

“Keep it safe,” he said, clutching Markus’s hand in his. “You deserve a good life, Markus. For putting up with this old geezer for so long,” his brittle laugh became a faint wheezing. “Listen to me…”

>>”You’re free now, Markus. You have a portion of my wealth. It’s not much but it’s enough for you to make do with whomever you choose to share it with.”

“Father…”

They hadn’t heard the steps that had approached the room. Instinctively, Markus pushed Carls will further down his pocket. Leo was staring at Carl, eyes exorbitant and mouth twitching.

“Father, what are you saying?”

Carl let out a pained groan and threw his balding head back. His breath turned into a rattle.

“Son… I’ve… I’ve always…”

His words died on his tongue at the same time the light in his eyes did.

Carl Manfred died the opposite of a peaceful, painless death, consumed by the illness that had been eating at him for years, with the fumbling outcries of his warring son and the silent sobs of Markus as his final backdrop.

“You’ve done this,” Leo pointed a shaky finger at Markus, who was still gripping onto Carl’s limp hand. “You’ve been poisoning his mind all these years, and now you’ve poisoned his body as well, with that strange concoction of yours... You’ve been pretending to care just so you could snatch my inheritance from me!” At that point his words had turned into incoherent mumbling and accusations. Markus paid no heed to them, busy as he was mourning the loss of the father he never thought he’d have.

The rattling of Leo’s teeth could almost be heard. “This is all your fault…” The sweat that lined his forehead and was starting to drip down his temples and weak jawline, the erratic rhythm of his chest’s ups and downs -all of it was telling; Leo looked absolutely deranged. His ramblings only became louder and more bitter until he stopped right in front of the tear-streaked servant and stared at him with a vicious expression.

“You must have put a spell on him, yes.” Leo’s grimace contorted into a wicked grin; spittle flying out of his mouth when he spoke. “You have done voodoo to him and convinced him of changing his will… why else would a respectable man dispossess his only son in favour of an exalted slave! They will hang you for this…”

Markus turned his head to face Leo’s frenzied ecstasy, slowly realizing what would follow. It was too late, though, for Leo had already rushed out the door, shouting and cackling like a maniac, leaving the former servant paralyzed, hunched over Carl’s unmoving body, still warm to the touch.

_Think._

If he was quick enough, he could reach the magistrate’s office and show Carl’s will, perhaps even make it effective before Leo’s accusation found willing ears. The thought of running from the room as Carl grew colder felt horrifying, but he reckoned he couldn’t stay there until Leo returned with the bailiff. With his cheeks still wet, he sprung out of the bed and ran down the stairs, bracing his vest. He didn’t bother taking a coat before venturing outside, where a breeze of cutting-cold wind punished his thick skin.

Simon. He worked for the governor’s wife, he could help him explain the situation to the authorities and, most important of all, he would be the unwavering support he needed, now more than he had ever needed anything.

His vision was blurry and he jumbled through the streets, disoriented. The Warren’s house was up the pebbled street, wasn’t it? Markus ran erratically, bad fortune conjuring up against him in such a way that he stumbled upon a small group of people holding torches and a piece of rope around the next corner.

“There he is! He’s trying to flee!”

“Get him!”

Squirming away from the tight grips of the men was futile, as was trying to get through them by words. It didn’t matter how much he cried it was a mistake; it was useless to shout for help.

Markus was shoved into the remaining free cell of the first floor of the town jail that very evening, hands tied firmly at his back and a blindfold pressed against his swollen eyes. The last thing they saw before the cloth closed around them was a satisfied, crooked grin lit by the dim orange glow of the torches.


End file.
